Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom:PsyLord: China White Tea: Voiceofreason01: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom:Have you seen an episode lately? They don't even bust "myths" anymore, just random potholes from shiatty 80's movies.

Pedantically criticizing the title of the show is totally a real point and not at all you mindlessly sticking to a broken talking point in a blatant plea for attention.

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The graphic does get a chuckle from me every time I see it. Look at the size of that huge cracker she's eating.

I don't understand that hate. Mythbusters got both my niece and my nephew interested in science as teens. Both are well on their way to earning their Masters (one in marine biology, the other in chemical engineering). Sure, at the time they were just gawking at two guys blowing stuff up unnecessarily, but it sparked an interest that lead them to a pretty awesome real science.

Do they do this on Mythbusters? Yes, in its simplest form they absolutely do. Therefore, they are following the scientific process.

Now the real argument is "does the experimental procedure have sufficient rigor to provide constant value and reproducibility?" In some experiment the answer is yes, on others it is clearly no. It really depends on the complexity of the hypothesis they are testing.I would say they do some great pilot studies, but I wouldn't let them test pharmaceuticals.

The need for rigor and constant value change based on the risk.If I am studying if raccoons will change their home range based on the availability of food, I don't need a control to run an ANOVA. What would that look like, a population denied any food? Food availability is the test treament here.

If I am testing whether a man-made chemical can cure cancer without seriously harming or killing the patient, I better have enough rigor to assure that under reproduction, the results maintain a constant value. The reality is

/funny thing is, the attacks on Mythbusters are the same as scientists make on each other

//as a scientist, I hypothesize this give validity to the claim they are scientists

25,000 men under arms(conservatively- Syracuse had a population of 300,000 when it was beseiged, and Archimedes was captain of the defenses)

The Mythbusters Human Capital:

two pairs of tits, four helpless dorks, and people from the internet that want to be on TV

I'd say Archimedes was sliiiightly more able to build a death ray than the Walrus and the Crapenter were.

Are you retarded? Yeah, right, the manpower is just the few in front of the camera. They don't have an entire team that they've shown behind the scenes in multiple myths. Did you also know that Ty Pennington build every god damn house himself with only a single hammer and some nails that Sears donated?

Private_Citizen:I've heard some people claim that female orgasm is a myth. I would like to volunteer to work with Kari to prove its real. Don't worry, the science would be very rigorous, with multiple trials in all possible combinations.

after being associated with that show for so long, she is certainly used to disappointment and things that fizzle instead of boom

Private_Citizen:I've heard some people claim that female orgasm is a myth. I would like to volunteer to work with Kari to prove its real. Don't worry, the science would be very rigorous, with multiple trials in all possible combinations.

Sure, but properly double blinding, you don't get to have sex with anyone.

I've heard some people claim that female orgasm is a myth. I would like to volunteer to work with Kari to prove its real. Don't worry, the science would be very rigorous, with multiple trials in all possible combinations.

jst3p:Big Bang theory is very funny because they have great writers and an ensemble cast that "works". Your comment is like saying "Cheers" was funny because.. you know... beer! I demand you retract your disparaging remark.

No, wouldn't it have been more like "Cheers wasn't funny because it glorified alcoholism and didn't accurately reflect what a real bar is like."

Maybe the ships were just hit with blinding light and the crew on deck was running around, in agony, bumping into things and tended to knock over a torch near the tar storage. and the ship burns down that way instead of microwaving it.

Paris1127: but known by many Londoners as the "Walkie Talkie" for its distinctive shape.

[www.skyscrapernews.com image 572x643]This is supposed to look like a walkie-talkie? I think this skyscraper in Santiago is way more walkie-talkie-esque:[www.celebratebig.com image 425x640]

/also: Archimedes sought to burn a fleet of Roman ships using the Sun. The skyscraper melted plastic in a stationary vehicle. Point: Mythbusters. Seriously, they've tested this myth like 3 times now... Even Obama couldn't get them to do it.

1. Did that car in that movie skip across water like a stone? Let's not look at the film and ask everyone involved how they did it, let's just make stuff up and decide.

2. There's this news story about a cop's gun that caught a bullet from another gun and is a matter of public record. It's in the news so it must be fake. Let's have a whole segment where we decide if the story and photos from the newspaper are a myth or not.

/the show would be much better if it was just a xkcd show of 'what ifs' and 'because we cans'.

Intelligent design is junk science. Myth Busters conducts real science with limited time and money. They can only do a limited number of attempts, they can't test every possibility, sometimes they get something wrong, but this is true of all science to varying degrees. It doesn't stop being science just because you think you're too cool for it.

Rising Ape:Kit Fister: joeshill: Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: The Mythbusters never "bust" anything but their own ineptitude.

Mythbusters, whose motto is: We couldn't figure out how to do it, therefore it cannot be done.

For both of you:

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Feynman was in fact very aware of the importance of rigour, as you can see if you read his comments on psychologists' rat-running experiments. Bad experiments are worse than useless because they make you think you've discovered something when in fact you haven't. "Bookkeeping" indeed...

Do they teach "missing the point" in that ivory tower you spend so much time in, or do you just practice that on your own?

Paris1127: /also: Archimedes sought to burn a fleet of Roman ships using the Sun. The skyscraper melted plastic in a stationary vehicle. Point: Mythbusters. Seriously, they've tested this myth like 3 times now... Even Obama couldn't get them to do it.

If you could not see faults with what they did, then you were not paying attention.It is an amusing show to watch, but the number of times I have watched it and seen an obvious mistake is not funny.

The biggest problem with their death ray tests is the people they had aiming the mirrors, Archamedes would have had people with the profesionalism of soldiers, they used high school/university students doing it for a laugh. The capabilities of an ancient greek and the capabilites of a modern teenager are no where near the same. and in the areas that mattered for the myth, the greeks would have been ALLOT better due to the time they lived in.

Kit Fister:China White Tea: Pretty sure the Mythbusters effort attempted to weaponize it in a mobile fashion. It's not like this is a sudden revelation of the heretofore unknown concept of solar convergence.

This. I've seen a solar collector in a fixed position turn steel into a liquid in seconds. It can be done. But not quite so simply if you've got a bunch of dudes holding a bunch of mirrors.

Especially if the best mirror technology you have is hammered bronze sheets polished to be shiny.

Incontinent_dog_and_monkey_rodeo:It's more: "Two minutes of either Googling or doing some simple math would tell us this was pointless, but we'll do it anyway because it involves blowing something up."

And this is somehow a bad thing? Blowing shiat up is worth it for its own sake.

dittybopper:Paris1127: /also: Archimedes sought to burn a fleet of Roman ships using the Sun. The skyscraper melted plastic in a stationary vehicle. Point: Mythbusters. Seriously, they've tested this myth like 3 times now... Even Obama couldn't get them to do it.

With enough mirrors in the right configuration, you could do it.

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Didn't I liberate this building for the NCR after the Brotherhood of Steel had been holding it?

Ever since 30 St. Mary Axe, which was rapidly gaining the moniker 'the dildo' until a bit of nimble PR coined 'the gherkin', new buildings in London seem to acquire vaguely descriptive, innocuous, nicknames before they're even out of the ground.

It's also a little stumpier than that rendering, in order (notionally) to reduce the visual impact on the nearby St. Paul's Cathedral.

Paris1127:/also: Archimedes sought to burn a fleet of Roman ships using the Sun. The skyscraper melted plastic in a stationary vehicle. Point: Mythbusters. Seriously, they've tested this myth like 3 times now... Even Obama couldn't get them to do it.